Brett Cornell Series

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Here's the 2nd half of Chapter 23 of "BRETT ENTERS THE SQUARE CIRCLE" (Brett Cornell Mystery #5), in which Brett delivers the report to his client (Doug Petrie) regarding the missing girl he's been hired to locate.

The paragraphs below (as usual) are told in the first-person, from Brett's point of view:

And so, after
arriving back home to shower and trim the old mustache, muss up the curls a
little bit to give them that natural, unruly look, and everything else that
needed to be done before leaving the apartment, I got back in the car and drove
on over to my private office downtown. Then, upon getting my fine derriere
ensconced in the old swivel-chair, I leaned back in utter comfort and
relaxation, held the phone to my ear, and soon found myself speaking to good
old Doug Petrie.

“You’re back? Already?”
the man exclaimed, quite astonished when he heard my voice and I told him that
our “mission” had been accomplished.

“Why act
surprised, little guy?” I retorted. “This is Brett Cornell you’re dealing with
here, not some two-bit private eye who don’t know his ass from his donkey.”

“So? What – what can
you tell me?” he said, and I could tell immediately that “nerved-up” was to be
the emotion of the day, as usual, for Officer Petrie. Whereupon I told him to
calm down, take a chill pill, and come on over to my office, so I could deliver
my official report to him in person.

“Well, can you at
least tell me –“

“Woops, gotta
hang up! The two F.B.I. agents I contacted last week are on their way into my
office right now to consult me on a top-secret government assignment we’ve
recently been collaborating on, so give me another hour or so, then come on
down.” And I dropped the receiver onto its hook, then straightened out the
hairs of my mustache as I complimented myself on my ability to lie so
convincingly and on the spur of the moment, too. Of course, in dealing with
gullible saps like Doug Petrie, it was a lot easier to do than usual.

And so, almost
sixty minutes later on the dot, Petrie poked his head in, gave me a weak smile,
and waited for me to finish blowing out just one more smoke ring before mashing
out my cigarette, then I motioned him to come in and even invited him to take a
seat.

“That’s O.K.,
Brett, I’ll remain standing,” he said, twisting his cap nervously about between
the fingers of both hands in front of him. (What else was new?) “I’m kind of –
anxious – even worried about what you’re about to tell me – you know – about
Stacey.”

“Fine, just stand
there then,” I told him,” but if I see piss start rolling down the side of your
leg and out the cuff of your pants, I’m gonna make you lick it up off the floor
before I let you leave this office.”

“In a word –“ I
said to him, and then paused for sweeping dramatic effect, “ – I’ve found
Stacey Ashton for you!”

Instantly,
instead of revealing an increase of nerves, the guy stiffened up, and he stared
at me in disbelief – or so it seemed to me at the time.

“You found her!”
he finally blurted out. “You found her? Where? Where did you find her?”

“Why, in
Philadelphia, you stupid little Dumbelina!” I told him with a sharp, brittle
laugh. “That’s where she told Melanie she’d be, and that’s where she told the
old biddy she worked with she’d be, and sure enough, that’s where I found her.”

“But how – that
is, how could you possibly have known where to look for her?” the guy wanted to
know, his brows knit but his hands holding tightly onto his cap without
twisting it around in his fingers.

“Well, this is
the thing, man,” I replied with a slight shrug of my shoulders. “From the very
beginning of this whole business, I got the impression that you and your slut
sister never really had enough confidence in my abilities as a private
detective. Am I right, or am I right?” I naturally didn’t give him time to
answer that, neither was I the least bit curious as to how he’d respond to the
question, anyways. “You just paid me a fair amount of money to go to Philly and
locate this gal, I did just as you asked, and now you’re finding it hard to
believe, ‘cause you don’t see how I could have possibly done it?” Then, without
giving him any time at all to consider that question either, I took the
photograph of Stacey Ashton out of my shirt pocket and tossed it across the
room in his direction, knowing damned well that he’d reach down and pick it up
from the floor as soon as he saw it land there. “There you have it, man.
There’s a photograph of the gal in question.”

Petrie, upon
bringing the photograph closer so as to examine it as completely as he needed
to, slowly ended up lowering it back down and, looking across at me with utter
seriousness, he said to me,

“Where did you
get this?”

“Is it her?” I
shot back at him, just to avoid answering his question a little longer, thus
increasing the odds of his actually wetting his pants while I did that.

“Yes, it’s her –
but that doesn’t answer the question: Where did you get this?”

“It don’t matter where I got it. It’s her,
right? Of course it is. You just admitted it.” Then I shifted my weight around
slightly in my swivel-chair and smiled quite broadly at him. “But it don’t
matter, either, if I tell you where I got it.” The guy seemed to perk up on the
spot, so I told him,” I got it from her cousin.”

“Her cousin?”

“Don’t stand
there, looking like such a damned idiot!” I couldn’t help saying to him. “Yeah,
I got it from her cousin Vera, who lives in Philadelphia. I spoke to Vera, and
I spoke to Stacey – and that’s about the size of it.”

“And – Stacey’s
all right? Nothing’s happened to her?” the guy asked me, and there was a slight
glimmer of hope starting to come into his eyes right then and there.

“She’s fine, man,
and as loose as a goose in a noose – in a manner of speaking, of course,” I
assured him. “The only thing is: She says she ain’t ever coming back here to
Rhode Island.”

Almost as though
he hadn’t really heard what I’d just told him – or possibly it hadn’t really
penetrated his thick skull, the man bit his lip for a moment, then smiled a bit
weakly, and said to me,

“So, she’s all
right, you say. Nothing’s happened to her, right?”

“Uh, I’m sorry I
neglected to get her to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect, pal,” I
retorted, starting to grow tired and impatient with this whole scene that was
being enacted in front of me.“You
should be happy, though, knowing that she’s fine and nothing’s happened to her.
Right?”

Then, after a brief
pause during which time Petrie didn’t seem to have the nerve to actually look
me in the eye, he gradually put a smile on his face, agreed with me that he now
had every reason to be happy, and then turned and went out the door.

Feeling a bit
exhausted, but slightly amused by the way the guy continued to carry on every
time he stood in front of me in my office, I almost absent-mindedly took out
another Marlboro, and then a match to light it with –

-- and then Doug
Petrie suddenly came storming back into my office.

“You’re a
goddamned liar!” he shouted at me, and then he rushed right up to my desk and
flung the photo of Stacey Ashton on top of it. “I don’t trust you, man! And I
don’t believe you! You’re just telling me all this, just to get me out of your
hair!”

“Get the –“ I
started to tell him, without even raising my voice or getting the least bit
perturbed.

“She’s not in
Philadelphia!” he then cried out, raising his voice in such a way that it went
off-pitch and sounded almost strangulated. “She’s in Manhattan – visiting her
father! She’s there, I just know it! – And I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to
go there and find her and bring her back! A thousand dollars, Brett! Just think
what you could do with all that money!”

“Get out of my
office,” was all I could think of to say to him. Well, on second thought, I
toyed with the idea of suggesting that he find himself a good shrink who might
be able to help him find his way back down to Planet Earth, but in all honesty,
the guy was starting to creep me out.

As it happened,
though, I didn’t have to repeat my request that he leave my office. In fact, I
didn’t really get a chance to speak another word to him, as he suddenly got a
blank look on his face, and then he started backing away from my desk. Then,
looking right at me but without really seeing me – or so it seemed – he kept
backing away and said to me,

“Just stay away
from me from now on. I don’t trust you. I – I’m afraid of you -- and I’m afraid
of what you might do to me –“

Then he shut
his lips tightly together, got a kind of stoned look on his face, and turned
around to sort of stumble his way out of my office.

I deliberately
allowed a full sixty seconds to pass by without even making another move, in
the event that he should suddenly decide to come back inside my office and
launch another verbal attack against me --and if that were to happen, I’d
immediately and personally put in the necessary call to the nearest psych ward
and have them send somebody on over to take him away.

But the sixty
seconds passed, and I finally struck a match and lit the cigarette I’d placed
between my lips when Petrie had left my office the first time around. Then,
with my surroundings perfectly still and quiet, I smoked my butt in peace.

But I certainly wasn’t at ease, as it slowly
was beginning to dawn on me that I might never be able to put this whole affair
behind me, since it was becoming more and more apparent that I might never
figure out where Stacey Ashton’s body had been stashed.

And yet –
standing in the April sunlight a few months later – I realized that I should
have known. I should have figured it out a lot sooner than I actually ended up
doing.

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About Me

I started writing the Brett Cornell novels over twenty years ago, which accounts for the 1980s setting of Brett's adventures. The novels are not meant to be entirely realistic. That is, in the real world, Brett would certainly have been murdered by somebody whom he'd ripped off or victimized in some manner. Plus, it's highly unlikely that he would get away with even a small amount of the unscrupulous behavior he exhibits, especially since he never pays for anything, and pretty much does exactly as he pleases with little or no regard for the law, or even simple rules of civility.
At the same time, I'm hoping that his wisecracks and outrageous conduct might come across as humorous and entertaining, and a certain catharsis may even be felt when Brett gets what he deserves -- which happens more often than not, throughout the course of the nine novels I have completed, so far.